The new 3G iPhone has poor battery performance particularly when running 3G applications, however one really big addition is the inclusion of GPS navigation however the antenna is too small to permit turn by turn navigation. On the plus side Apple has improved the audio output of the device over previous iPhones claims Walt Mossberg of All Things Digital, David Pogue of The New York Times, and Edward Baig of USA Today who are among the first technology journalists in the world to conduct in-depth reviews of the new Appple 3G iPhone which will go on sale in Australia on July 11.
Walt Mossberg if the Wall Street Journal wrote I’ve been testing the iPhone 3G for a couple of weeks, and have found that it mostly keeps its promises. In particular, I found that doing email and surfing the Internet typically was between three and five times as fast using a 3G network.
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He says that Apple’s new iPhone operating system includes an ‘App store,’ where you can browse for, and download, third-party software. The iPhone 3G is hardly the first phone to run on 3G networks, and it still costs more than some of its competitors. But overall, I found it to be a more capable version of an already excellent device. And now that it’s open to third-party programs, the iPhone has a chance to become a true computing platform with wide versatility.
There are two big hidden costs to the new iPhones faster speed and lower price tag. First, in my tests, the iPhone 3G’s battery was drained much more quickly in a typical day of use than the battery on the original iPhone, due to the higher power demands of 3G networks. This is an especially significant problem because, unlike most other smart phones, the iPhone has a sealed battery that can’t be replaced with a spare.Mossberg didn’t seem very happy about the battery life. “In my tests, the iPhone 3G’s battery was drained much more quickly in a typical day of use than the battery on the original iPhone, due to the higher power demands of 3G networks,” he wrote. “In daily use, I found the battery indicator on the new 3G model slipping below 20% by early afternoon or midafternoon on some days, and it entirely ran out of juice on one day.”
Pogue didn’t address battery life, but Baig thought the iPhone 3G consumed roughly the same amount of juice as its predecessor. “I started receiving low battery warnings toward the end of a busy work day; I found myself charging the
One big addition to the iPhone 3G was GPS, but according to David Pogue of the New York Times the antenna is too small to permit useful things like turn-by-turn navigation. Edward Baig of USA Today didn’t think it was that bad: “I was pretty impressed by the accuracy on the new device as I drove along in my car, searched for nearby pizza places, and requested directions,” he wrote.
Edward Baig of USA Today writes “The iPhone isn’t perfect, or even the most ideal Smartphone for every user. Though frankly, the list of reasons the device doesn’t make sense for a certain class of users is shrinking fast.
He added “I’ve been using iPhone 3G to access my USA TODAY mail, calendar and contacts. Messages and calendar entries are “pushed” to the device, so they show up right away, just as they do on other computers. With your employer’s blessing, set-up is a relative cinch. But not all of iPhones early drawbacks have disappeared. You still cannot shoot video, take advantage of Bluetooth stereo or dial with a voice command. Such features are common on rival devices. (I’m hoping some shortcomings will be addressed by third-party developers.)
As far as nits go, that was about it. The outstanding issues remain: the touch screen keyboard doesn’t work for everybody, the cost of operating an iPhone has risen despite the drop in the starting price, and it doesn’t have things like voice-dialling or MMS.
On the plus side, all of te US reviewers thought Apple dramatically improved the audio quality of the iPhone 3G, both in terms of the built-in iPod and the phone.
